1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to computer control of user devices and, more particularly, to the use of JavaBeans(trademark) for providing centralized control of attached devices in a vehicle network.
2. Description of Related Art
As computer controlled devices become more pervasive, it is not unexpected that such devices would spread to traditionally mechanical domains such as automotive vehicles. A network vehicle was demonstrated at the Comdex Trade Show in November of 1997. That vehicle had a central computer which was used to control several attached devices.
Various manufacturers have been developing and deploying bus architectures suitable for use in a vehicle.
Computer systems are known which permit xe2x80x9cplug and playxe2x80x9d operation. When a new device is attached to the computer bus, its presence is detected and it is automatically added to the list of devices known to the CPU to be on the bus.
Object oriented programming languages and object oriented development environments are known in the art.
JavaBeans(trademark) and the Java Development Kit(trademark) are well known products available from Sun Microsystems. JavaBeans(trademark) is an architecture and platform neutral application programming interface for creating and using dynamic Java components. Application developers can use a variety of development tools, such as a Java Development Kit(trademark) to assemble custom applications from fully portable JavaBeans(trademark).
The invention is directed to methods, apparatus, systems and computer program apparatus using JavaBeans(trademark) for implementing device interfaces in an vehicular computer system. In such a system, a vehicle control center, having a processor and memory, provides access to devices operating within the vehicle. The manufacturer of such devices provides a JavaBean(trademark) interface stored with the device. When a device is installed in the vehicle, the processor or other control element of the vehicle control center becomes aware of the installation and requests or otherwise receives the stored JavaBean(trademark) interface from the device. A data structure is used to store information about the interfaces. The vehicle control center can use the data structure to use one of the interfaces as received or replace it with a different interface already stored in memory. In this way, plug and play and hot plug and play functionality can be achieved.
The foregoing and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.